


Blue Sea, White Sand

by signifying_nothing



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, Suicide mention, Vomit Mention, don't worry no one dies and it's not super descriptive, passively suicidal yuuji, reincarnation fic kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 01:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11933373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: Terushima Yuuji is one passive death-wish experience away from ending up in the morgue with a toe-tag and closed-casket funeral to follow, but no one will ever be able to say that he didn't live his life as much as he could before that funeral came to be.





	Blue Sea, White Sand

**Author's Note:**

> in case you didn't read the tags, there are mentions of suicidal thoughts/a past suicide attempt in this fic, please read responsibly.   
> this is just some artsy bullshit bc i'm stuck in haikyuu rarepair hell with ushiwaka/bokuto and trying to finish this yaku/lev bc why is there not enough top!yaku, guys. why.

Terushima Yuuji is in it for the thrills. _Do it for the Vine!!_ and all that. Terushima Yuuji is one passive death-wish experience away from ending up in the morgue with a toe-tag and closed-casket funeral to follow, but no one will ever be able to say that he didn't live his life as much as he could before that funeral came to be.

He looks down at the water. Looks down the cliff and takes a deep breath.

“Yuuji,” Kuroo says, his voice stilted with hesitation.

But Terushima has already backed up. Is already running, sprinting, using those four high school years of track and field experience to his advantage as he leaps over the edge of the cliff. The fall is electric. Everything is weightless. There is nothing but him and the wind, him and the water, him and the earth, round in space, rotating on her axis and her gravity dragging him back down to the ground.

Terushima barely remembers to pull the release of his hang-glider—its wings snap open but it's too late, it's too late and he barely has time to yank the emergency buckle to release him from the canvas and aluminum cage before he hits the water as hard as he would have hit the ground, sinking, sinking, sinking to the bottom of the turquoise waves where the white sand is waiting for him.

 _I'm gonna die,_ he thinks, his head moving with the currents. He's swallowing water. It's all right. He's always wanted to die in the water, ever since the first time he'd nearly drowned. It had been so peaceful. So heavy and quiet and it had felt more like memory than anything. His hair is floating around his face, long and blonde and shining in the filtered sunlight. Then there are hands pushing it back—there is a face searching his. A strong face, masculine and serious with long, dark brown hair. Another, bright and curious and crested with orange. He hears chirping, little _kiks_ and whistles. Everything hurts. A third face appears with eyes so brown they look warm. Terushima can't keep his eyes open, the salt burns, but there is a mouth pressed to his and he feels air in his lungs, sweet oxygen. He is dragged through the water by gentle hands. And still there is air being pushed into his lungs, until his body is pushed up onto the shore. He chokes, coughs and gags, turns on his side to vomit and cry with the pain of swallowed saltwater and bile. The man is watching him. The man in the water has gills down his neck and scales on his shoulders. He jerks back into the water and Terushima sees the tail of some great fish disappearing into the water and he reaches for it, trying to scrape out the words, but they won't come.

The next thing that comes to the surface is Kuroo, holding his head and shouting, pulling him up his legs to try and make sure he keeps breathing. “Jesus what a stupid fucking stunt—it's okay, Yuuji, you're gonna be okay, the ambulance is on the way,” he's saying. He sounds like he might start crying. Bokuto is making some kind of scorching sound in the background—he's furious and frightened. Tsukishima is kneeling beside Kuroo, pushing back Terushima's hair and shining a flashlight into his eyes, helping to tip his body as he vomits again.

Terushima stares out at the water and reaches for someone he isn't sure is there.

o

Terushima Yuuji has been diagnosed as _passively suicidal_ for the last seven years or so. After his last major depressive episode halfway through high school that culminated in his attempt to end his life by slitting his own wrists. Kuroo had been the one to stop him then, too. God knows why.

But as he sits in the office and listens to his psychologist go on and on about the new restrictions he's going to be under, the new cares he's going to have to take, all he can think about is those men in the water. Air breathed into his mouth, one hand holding his face steady, the other on his back. The pumps of a powerful tail bringing him back to shore, the last place he wants to be.

It takes two months of being locked up in the psyche ward before he's 'rehabilitated' and sent back out into the world. The first place he goes is the beach. He sits under the cliff and watches the water, just watches. When Kuroo comes to find him he doesn't resist being pulled away. The next morning he takes the bus out again. He watches the tide and the waves. He listens to the birds and the distant hum of cars. Kuroo comes to get him. It repeats for a week, and then it becomes routine. Kuroo even sometimes sits with him. Sometimes it's Bokuto and Akaashi, or Tsukishima. Terushima doesn't deserve them. They're good people. They're good _friends._ They don't deserve to watch him self-destruct into something barely worth considering as a human, they don't deserve to watch him fall apart. Once it had been a fun game, thrillseeking. They'd done it all through college, while his friends played volleyball and Terushima worked on his double-major arts degrees. It had been a break from it all, a chance to let loose and have _fun._

Now, Terushima has fun by sitting on the beach and mapping out the water in copic markers over and over and over. He draws a face he barely remembers. One afternoon, after Kuroo texts that he's going to be a little late, Terushima steps out of his shoes. He pulls off his t-shirt and sets it on the sand beside his sketchbook. He walks to the water and feels himself shaking. He's terrified. But that's all right. Better terrified than...

He takes a step in. The water is warm and soaks his sweats quickly. They get heavier the further in he goes, until their weight is dragging them down below the waist of his briefs. He cinches them tight and ties them to keep them up. He dips into the water. He braces himself.

He swims.

He doesn't know how far out he was when he hit the water. Further than he's comfortable swimming, usually. But he'll manage. He lets himself push against the outgoing tide and finds himself in the orange sunlight in water so blue it hurts to look at, white sand beneath his floating body. He can see schools of fish, colorful corals. He sees a stingray, and countless urchins. A pair of nurse sharks, swimming in lazy circles.

Terushima doesn't have time to gasp before he's yanked under the water. The arms holding him are spindly, but he doesn't resist. He lets himself get dragged down, stares blearily at the orange hair. He wants to laugh, to cry. He hadn't imagined it. He hadn't imagined it at all.

Then there is air in his lungs and big hands on his waist. He's lost weight in the last few months. His body is soft and pliant as he's gripped and kissed, air moving from one set of lungs to the other. He is passed around—several mouths touch his, pass air to him. He can't see them all. But he can see that he comes back to the one holding his waist, who cups his head and makes Terushima feel like it might be worth dying this way, embraced by something magical, something beautiful.

o

Terushima is brought back to the beach but this time he grabs his saviors arm, very weakly. He's so tired all the time these days, the swimming took a lot out of him.

“Please don't go,” he whispers, pathetic, feeling himself cry like a small child being separated from their parents. “Please.”

The brown-eyed creature looks down at him, considering. Terushimas vision blurs and then suddenly clears as he blinks. The creature leans in, kisses his forehead. The lips are warm and soft and wet and he's struck with the sudden thought that, maybe this is just as invigorating for the other as it is for him. Maybe it's what he looks forward to, what he lives for.

It's all Terushima is living for.

“Don't leave me,” his voice is a whimper, weak. There is another kiss, to his cheekbone, to his mouth. He hears the gills work, feels clean air being pushed into his lungs but also feels a hand cradling his face so very gently. Tenderly. There is a smile, a little burbling noise and noses rubbing together like small children.

Then it is gone, and things are as they always were. Terushima drags himself back to his sketchbook and draws out those brown eyes, that beautiful, warming smile and wonders how he can miss something he never really had.

He tries not to cry when Kuroo comes and asks why he's all wet, why he's shaking. He doesn't have an answer for him. He's not sure Kuroo really expects one.

o

“Are you sure you're gonna be okay?”

Bokuto's asking for the hundredth time and for the hundredth time, Terushima nods, grins, waggles his tongue and makes some crack about going out and getting lucky. It's been almost a year since his fall, and four months since he's been back to the water, back to where those brown eyes had found him. His friends are going on a trip to Mexico for some thrillseeking but Terushima just wants to stay where he is. They accept that, and once they're gone he goes down to the beach. He spends the entire day there, and the next day. On the third day there is a storm, but Terushima wades into the water anyway. He's nude this time. He hopes he doesn't come back.

He's nearly too weak to swim further when he's pulled under, and those brown eyes take him in. They look at him and Terushima feels stripped bare and exhausted. He reaches to be held and is held. His ugly scars shine silver down here beneath the water. They could almost be something beautiful. He is pushed down into the white sand. The water is dark and gloomy above them, but down here at the bottom it is calm and quiet. Waiting.

The creature looks at him. Terushima tries to look back but has to squint his eyes closed. Chokes on the water until his mouth is covered and he is gifted with oxygen. He feels something tug on the skin of his neck. He ignores it. The air moving into his lungs becomes a kiss, deep and wet. Terushima doesn't notice when he stops breathing. He doesn't notice when his legs press together and stop being able to come apart. He only knows a broad, warm chest. Firm hands, warm lips in the cool water. He only knows the press and domination of a body against his and he gives in, gives up, gives himself to be taken and he is. He is taken apart and put back together again against the white sand and the rocks, gasping into the water as he is mated and claimed and bitten by sharp little teeth. He opens his eyes and finds that his vision is clear. He opens his eyes and cannot remember what the world above the water was like, doesn't want to remember. He knows only Daichi, the warmth of his body, the way their tails wrap together, the way their scales rub and their bodies spread pheromones through the water. He knows only that Daichi is his mate, that the hands holding his over his head are stronger than he is, that Daichi's scent is all over his body and that is all he wants to know.

 _Daichi,_ he breathes, and Daichi smiles, shows off his teeth as he bites Terushima's arm. It feels like something he's been missing his entire existence has come back to him. Or perhaps he's come back to Daichi, who has been waiting so patiently. If he hadn't come back that third time he would still be in that life where he did not belong, that life above the water that was not meant for him.

 _Yuuji,_ Daichi replies, and the two of them swim beneath the storm out into the deeper water, where Asahi and Yuu and Shouyo are waiting for them. He _remembers_ them, and darts to greet them with a laugh on his lips. They've been waiting—

And Yuuji is home.

o

(above the water, terushima yuuji doesn't exist. there is only a pile of sketchbooks in the corner of kuroo tetsurou's apartment, full of pictures of the world beneath the water—merpeople, grand waterscapes, and pictures of a blonde merman tangled up with a brunette, looking at one another as though there is nothing else in the world and captioned with, _i will always find you._ )

 


End file.
